Monday with Brian....

Monday morning began early.  Brian has been doing gym workouts and strength training for some time now.  He is really looking quite fit and says he feels much better.  BUT he gets up at 6:00 AM to go do his workouts.  As soon as he started moving, the dogs... who slept with me in bed... not something they normally do...began to move around to see what was going on.  Then the smell of bacon, wafted up the steps which had us all hungry.  So I got the dogs downstairs, outside for a quick pee only to find Brian had quietly left the house.  So I fed the dogs and went back to bed.  Did not sleep, but watched a little TV until Brian returned.

He showered and fixed me breakfast (I love being spoiled when he cooks for me).  I dressed and we headed out for some shopping.  First was to Twin Cities Quilting Shop.  I had told Brian that I wanted to collect a few "Row by Row" License Plates to represent my travels.  We found the shop and got the fabric license plate along with a pattern.  We then headed to a delightful tea shop to get some loose teas.  I had brought Brian a Teable tea strainer/steeper that Deb Ready had shared with me at the OBX trip.  I only had some really, really old loose tea and wanted some fresh.  Then we went to a Tractor Supply store.  I needed to replace one of my dog beds I had brought with me from PA as the dogs had gnawed a couple of holes in ine and were pulling the stuffing out.  They did not have what I wanted, so we would check out pet supply stores later.  We then went to the grocery store to pick up stuff for the making of some of our meals while I am here.

We headed home, let the dogs out and Brian set about making dinner.  He grilled pork chops with cherrywood smoke, covered them in a light Blue Cheese sauce and home made stuffing.  Yummy.  He is such an excellent cook.

Then we headed out to Merlin's Rest, the local pub that Brian calls home when he wants a night out.  He is good friend with the owner and was helping him move dumpsters and used grease containers so their parking lot across the street could be paved and fixed up.  He usually plays darts with the owner on Monday evenings, but Lee had made other plans, knowing I would be here.

When we walked into the place, there was a news crew there, and they were filming three folks who were showing them how a Blind Dart League played darts on the occasional night at Merlin's Rest.  The news crew seemed to think it was a novel, new idea.  Lee said the league of blind dart throwers had been meeting at the pub for over 8 years.  They meet every Thursday night.

Some of the folks Brian knows were at the pub and I entertained them by taking pictures of them with my phone and then printing them out with my HP Sprocket. (Thanks Marji for sharing this techie fun toy with me.)  Here are a couple of them.

This, of course, is Brian.  Isn't he a handsome young man?

This is Pat.  He walks to the pub from time to time.  He was always in a state of leaving to go home, but was there for several hours.

This is Ally.  One of the bar tenders.  She is delightful and made sure we were well taken care of throughout the evening.

This is Jim, another bartender.  He came in just before the rush and helped Ally out.  She then assumed other duties when the rush died down.

I also took some pictures with my good camera.  They are here:

These are all random shots of the news crew preparing different shots.  In this picture, the man on blue is one of the organizers of the Blind Dart League, the more heavyset man in the gray is one of the blind players and the kid fooling with the camera is part of the crew.

The lady in the hoodie is also one of the organizers and the younger lady in the light blue is either the reporter of the cameraman's assistant. The rest of the pictures are various shots as they progressed.

The dart board is electronic.  It registers hits and tells the thrower where and the position using the positioning of hands on the clock.  It will tell them their score at the end and then announce the score for the next player, asking them to step up.  On the floor is taped PVC pipes that are the correct distance to the board and the best width for their feet from the back corner. The shooter starts out by standing, facing away from the board and positioning their feet.  Then they turn around, plant their feet at the back corners of the frame, and then, using whatever technique works for them, throws three darts at the board.  The two organizers used blindfolds to throw.  And, believe it or not, there were some nice scores and even a bullseye or three during the time they played.  At the end, the news crew attempted to throw three darts.  They discovered it was harder than these folks made it look.

The only bad thing about this entire thing is that the pictures above were from my new Sony camera that I purchased with birthday money this summer.  I had downloaded pictures directly from the SD card while at Linda's by taking the card out and into a card reader since I had no internet.  I had put a new card in the camera and all was well.  But I wanted to put the old card back in as it had much more storage available to use.  But the card would not go into the slot.  I tried and tried and finally got it in, but the camera could not read the card.  So it will be heading back to the shop I got it from for assistance in resolving this issue.  So I will be using my little point and shoot Samsung the rest of the trip or my phone.

Back to Merlin's Rest....

This pub is owned by a delightful couple. Lee is from England has a delightful accent and his wife, Tracey also has a slight accent even though she is from California.  They are very nice people and seem to have taken Brian under their wing.  Lee has implemented at Scotch Tasting program and on the 4th Thursday every month, you can sign up, pay your fee and come in to taste several varieties of Single Malt Scotches.  He prides himself in his knowledge of this liquor and works hard to find different ones with different flavors and notes.  At this time, his collection of different Single Malt Scotches is close to 330.  This is what that looks like in the pub.

And this is not all of them.  They live under the cabinets as well.  But it does make for an impressive bar scene.  In these bottles are ONLY Single Malt Scotch or Irish Whiskey!!!

I am sure this will be a scene that I will be visiting at least once more while I am here.  It is really a very nice place to come spend a few hours.  Great people and even greater food!!  I will post more later.